Posted on 07/07/2018 1:58:32 PM PDT by BBell
SAN FRANCISCO Growing up in eastern China, Panshu Zhao fell in love with America. He read the Bible his parents gave him, watched Hollywood movies and studied the ideals of democracy. He jumped at the chance to attend graduate school at Texas A&M University.
In 2016, Zhao enlisted in the U.S. Army as part of a special recruitment program offering immigrants in the country legally a path to citizenship.
The future, he said, was bright.
Now, he is one of the dozens of immigrant recruits and reservists struggling with abrupt, often unexplained military discharges and canceled contracts. They traded being willing to risk their lives for the prospect of U.S. citizenship, a timeworn exchange that's drawn linguists, medical specialists and thousands of other immigrants to the military since the Revolutionary War.
"It's just like you're dropped from heaven to hell," Zhao told The Associated Press on Friday.
It is unclear how many men and women who enlisted through the special recruitment program have been ousted from the Army, but immigration attorneys told the AP that they know of more than 40 recruits who recently have been discharged or whose status has become questionable.
Some recruits say they were given no reason for their discharge. Others said the Army informed them they'd been labeled as security risks because they have relatives abroad or because the Defense Department had not completed background checks on them.
The Pentagon said Friday that there has been no policy change since last year, when Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said no one could enter basic training without completion of a background investigation.
And Army spokeswoman Cynthia O. Smith said that any enlistee entering the military undergoes security screenings.
(Excerpt) Read more at star-telegram.com ...
This guy and others did have a contract. A contract should mean something.
A Pakistani that grew up in China probably speaks 3 languages and he is pursuing a PhD in geography. He should not have trouble in the private sector. I hope him the best.
Why do I smell the odor of Deep State as I read this article?
You are falling for the liberal outrage syndrone.
I read in an article yesterday that one of the conditions for citizenship was to complete basic training and he has not yet taken Army basic training, thus he is being discharged.
If you were to try and break a contract with the military there would be repercussions directed at you but the military can cancel them at will.
In WWII we let Hitler's nephew serve.
When I served in Japan and other Far East countries in late 50s/early 60s, a lot of men ‘fell in love’ with Japanese and or other Nationalities and wanted to get married.
Standard at the time for marriage was E5 and below needed permission to get married.
I had a Crypto Clearance and we were told that any ‘deep’ relationships with ‘Native Ladies’ would probably end up with losing ones Security Clearance.
It may not have ‘bothered’ 80% of the crew but those of us that NEEDED a clearance of one sort or another had to walk a ‘straighter’ line.
I would imagine a lot of the ‘new wave volunteers’ were not properly vetted etc, so a problem arises then and there.
You make some good points. I’ll disagree with your overall theme though.
Do you think Gen Mattis wants to get rid of GOOD soldiers? I don’t think that’s his SOP, is it?
If he doesn’t want that, then maybe there’s more to it, that he sees, that we don’t see yet.
He may be a fine fellow but anyone with any knowledge of military security knows you do not allow foreign nationals to have access to certain information. Noforn. Tough.
always better to not have foreigners in your army, ——Marcus Aurelius
Dude, read the article.
Exactly. They are picking the ones that should be allowed to stay because they’ve earned it to make Trump look bad. There is a deep state within the military too, regardless of all the great men and women who have served in it (including my son).
As with EVERYTHING coming from the MSM, think no more of this story until the rest of it is told.
There is something Obamamy in the state of Denmark.
A Pakistani that grew up in China has risk written in big letters all over him.
He probably got in when the military was being told to go for languages over a commitment to security.
The vast majority of immigrant soldiers have remained unscathed. Those that are booted are done so because they failed their background checks, usually because of a criminal history or insufficient documentation. There is no contract being violated here, as fas as I can tell.
Unreported travel and unreported relationships will and should get the boot. Even a normal “secret clearance will and should be pulled for non compliance with regulations. We give out way to many clearances to the point they are useless IMHO.
They have a Frank Marshall Davis in their past?
Which part?
His background did not check out. THAT is the reason for discharges. There are probably not just immigrants being released, but it does make a good story for the Left.
There’s lots of information missing from this story critical to understanding what actually happened (but actually understanding what happened isn’t why the article was written of course, trying to smear the administration as xenophobic is why the article was written)
Army recruiters sometimes find people who cannot possibly serve in the military job they’re signed up for. Occasionally it’s even not the recruiter trying to sneak one by meps to make their mission for the quarter.
Foreigners or people with significant foreign connections are signed up for jobs that require security clearances because they have critical language skills (I’m sure Chinese is in that list) and while they pass some hurdles or get waivers at some levels, they get flagged at higher levels and separated out. If the flagging occurs before they ship off for basic, it’s not a discharge. If they start basic training, they may be offered a different job or a no-fault discharge. Probably better to be processed out now than be forced to spend years begrudgingly serving as a cook rather than as a linguist, not that there’s anything wrong with cooks, but they are much different jobs.
It doesn’t, or shouldn’t at least, mean that these are bad people - - just that the facts of their lives are either not compatible with military service or the effort needed to find out exceeds their value within the military.
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